TIHV: at least 310 people died in the Kurdish region from August 2015

The Documentation Center of TIHV (Human Rights Foundation of Turkey) has released a fact sheet on declared curfews between August 16th, 2015 and March 18th, 2016 in the Kurdish region of Turkey.

Accordingly, between the dates August 16th, 2015 and March 18th, 2016 there has been 63 officially confirmed, open-ended and round-the-clock curfews in at least 22 districts of 7 cities in Southeastern Turkey. Those cities are: Diyarbakır (34 times), Şırnak (9 times), Mardin (11 times), Hakkâri (5 times), Muş (1 time), Elazığ (1 time) and Batman (2 times). It is estimated that, according to the 2014 population census, at least 1 million 642 thousand residents have been affected by these curfews and fundamental rights of these people such as Right to Life and Right to Health are explicitly violated.

According to the statement of Ministry of Health on February 27th, 2016, at least 355 thousand residents were forced to leave the cities and districts they lived in.

According to the data of HRFT Documentation Center, since August 16th, 2015 (which is the date of first declared curfew) until March 18th, 2016 at least 310 civilians lost their lives in regions and periods of time that curfews were officially declared. Besides, there are at least 59 bodies from Cizre that are buried without waiting for the identification process and at least 20 bodies from Sur are waiting in Forensic Medicine Institutions and these bodies are not included in the given data.

Among the 310 civilians are 72 children, 62 women and 29 of those who are older than 60. Furthermore, 79 people are not included in the data due to the fact that their bodies are still not identified.

At least 180 civilians, whose information on how they died is obtained, lost their lives while they were within the boundaries of their homes. 162 of these people were killed due to opened fire or hitting by a missile and 18 of them lost their lives due to the direct stress effect of curfews on their health conditions. Moreover, 137 of these people who lost their lives within the boundaries of their homes were only in Cizre District.